


Hasty Angst

by ObliObla



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hurt Lucifer, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: A series of vignettes mostly focused on Lucifer and angst. Spans pre-canon through all seasons. More specific descriptions and warnings are in author notes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _The party never had to stop._
> 
> Pre-canon, drug use, mild sexual content

The party never had to stop. Not for long, anyway.

Another pill, another line, another shot. Another club, another dance, another fuck. Another desire. Another.

_When would he come back? How long did he have before—?_

The sun on his face. The salt breeze in his hair. The starlight on his skin.

-

Josh, the man’s name was. A sacrament to be taken kneeling.

He laughed.

Christine, this one. Tasting of the sea, and of light, and of life.

_How long?_

-

A smoke, a hit, a moment of stillness. There was too much room in his head. Bounded and yet infinite. He took another hit.

-

He hadn’t caught their names, but he knew their desires. And wasn’t that all that mattered?

_He would be gone soon._

He grabbed another bottle.

-

He found himself sitting at a piano.

_No music in Hell._

The notes were strange, running over each other in their haste to hit the air. It sounded a mess, or maybe it was exquisite.

Someone was weeping.

_Someone was watching._

-

Sleep would be a blessing were it not that he had bad dreams.

He buried his face in a pillow.

_-_

_Would it be today? Would it be this hour? Would it be this very minute?_

He dragged himself from a bed. Limbs caught at him, and he pushed them away. Something. He needed something. A drink, a pile of powder, a handful of pills.

_You can’t drug your way out of accepting the truth._

He could damn well try.

-

Wine was a sacrament too.

He drained another bottle.

-

The sun was on his face. The salt breeze ruffled his hair. Sand scratched at his back. There were no sounds but gulls and waves.

A beach. He was on a beach. He was on _the_ beach.

There was too much room in his head. He was too out in the open. He had to keep moving before he got caught.

_There was no escape._

-

He watched the sword over his head swing. Watched the executioner’s axe fall. Watched the fist aimed at his face.

The blow wouldn’t come.

But the pain did.

-

The party never had to stop. But he did.

Didn’t he?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 1, Episode Tag: Manly Whatnots, POV Lucifer, POV Chloe
> 
> Why did it matter?
> 
> Why did _she_ matter?

Why did it matter?

Why did _she_ matter?

Why did it matter that she touched him there, as if hundreds—nay, thousands—of other humans hadn’t done the same?

Why was there concern in her eyes? Concern not for herself, but for _him_, as if he were a lowly mortal, as if some earthly father had pressed those scars into his flesh. As if they were pitiable.

As if _he_ were pitiable.

And how dare she? How dare she pity him? _It wasn’t pity._ He, the morning star, the brightest of all God’s angels until he declared himself free of His machinations. _Still chained._ Whose scars were nothing but the grandest and most audacious of recriminations. _The pain had burned through him until he was left vacant. Hollow._

Damn the softness in her voice. And damn the weakness in his own. Not a command or demand nor, even, a question, but a plea. A _plea_! He, the lord of the damned, the prince of this world and of the one beneath, a supplicant to _her_?

How dare she?

The scars itched. At the party, in the penthouse, later. They itched and they echoed with a shadow ache that had no right to exist. He found himself unbalanced, unmoored, and it vexed him. _Worried him._ Annoyed him. _Terrified him._

And later, when she shot him with a human bullet and he bled mortal blood from a mortal wound, he could no longer deny his concern—_terror_—and so he did as he always did.

He buried it.

Buried in humor and glee and excitement. Buried in wrath and hatred and brutality. Buried with all the things he couldn’t allow himself to feel, could hardly allow himself to acknowledge, deep in the deceptively fecund soil of his ravaged soul.

What fruits might those broken thoughts bear?

And what light may spring from all that twisted darkness?

* * *

Who was this guy?

What the hell was his deal? How could he be so untouchable and so damn approachable at the same time? And his _father_?

_His father’s fault._

What kind of person could do that to their child? Or maybe it _was_ all delusion. All the nonsense and metaphors she’d been ignoring. But then what were the scars? And what was the look on his face like no one had ever seen them?

She’d been done with him. _Especially_ when he’d destroyed their veneer of professionalism entirely for his immature bullshit. And then...

_Don’t. Please._

Damn him. Damn him and his asshole smirks and his _berries_ and the softness in his eyes when all his armor collapsed in a way that his nakedness hadn’t managed.

How dare he?

How dare he make her care, even when he gave her a dress barely more than a napkin, even when he went rogue and locked her out, and even when she...

She shot him.

He goaded her and she forgot her senses, lost all reason, and she shot him. And he bled. Of _course_ he bled. He was human. He’d always been human. She’d been seeing things that weren’t there. Seeing strength and power and vulnerability when there was _nothing_. But the scars...

What had happened to this strange, broken man?

And why did he keep coming back?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Season 2, Episode Tag: Monster, POV Lucifer
> 
> Foolish.
> 
> Lucifer had rarely _been_ so foolish and he was hardly a wise Devil under normal circumstances. But Linda hadn’t believed him. She never had believed him, but she’d wanted to, hadn’t she?
> 
> Hadn’t she?

Foolish.

Lucifer had rarely _been_ so foolish and he was hardly a wise Devil under normal circumstances. But Linda hadn’t believed him. She never had believed him, but she’d wanted to, hadn’t she?

Hadn’t she?

And then hope—that right utter bastard—had reared its ugly, monstrous head and he almost let himself believe that he could be accepted by the one person who knew him better than any other. She’d wanted him to be honest—what the hell else was he supposed to do? _Leave like you always do_, a voice whispered. _Spare her your presence._ He shook his head and ran his fingers along the piano keys, picking out a simple melody even as he shut his eyes.

Fear.

He had seen the overwhelming, mindless terror of the cornered animal when he’d stood—something he had rejoiced in—reveled in, even—in others. Her lips shook, her eyes stared, wide and fixed and unblinking, and an ugly pain arose from his gut and settled in his stomach. It was akin to the guilt, but it burned with an even more acrid savor on his tongue and down his throat.

He truly was a monster, wasn’t he? He’d killed Uriel—_every killer must be punished_—and now, through his own selfishness, he had hurt Linda. Had maybe even broken her. _She will always be afraid of you._

Why had he ever thought she could accept him?

Why had he ever thought he could belong here?

He rose from the bench and stepped out onto the balcony, looking up at what he could see of the stars through the light pollution.

“I want to blame you,” he told the sky. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He breathed in a lungful of smoke and let it drift slowly from his nostrils. “I want to rage and rave as I always do, but—” He dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, fingers drumming against the railing.

_Monster. You deserve to be punished._

“I deserve this,” he said softly. “I deserve to be punished.” He clasped his hands before letting them fall to his sides. “And maybe I always have.”

Guilt.

It had felt so new, so strange, but now—_it’s all your fault_—it burned through him, hot as hellfire and nearly as familiar. A feeling he had been running from for days—_for eons_—but could no longer escape.

But he couldn’t stop. He had to keep going, even though he knew it was futile. Even though he knew he deserved every ounce of the pain. Fleeing—from the ache in his chest, from all those things he couldn’t let himself feel—was the only thing he knew how to do. Was the only thing he truly had.

And if he couldn’t do that, what was left?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post Season 3, Crack, POV Lucifer
> 
> _Bloody feathers drifted idly to the floor._

_Bloody feathers drifted idly to the floor._

He gripped the bar tighter and pulled himself up.

_Her face, shocked, horrified, even, as she fell back to the marble floor._

He let go, falling back to the floor, leaving marks on the steel. The sweat burned his eyes and he jumped up again, fingers tight to the grooves he’d made himself, smoothly moving up and down, breathing steadily with the mantra in his mind.

_She was gone. She was gone. She was gone._

She wasn’t coming back.

He grabbed the bar, resting it lightly on his shoulders. Down and up. Down and up. Down and up.

_What was he still doing here?_

And what was he doing _here_ but burying everything he couldn’t feel in this repetitive motion? Unthinking, forcing air into his lungs and blood faster through his veins.

But it only gave him more time to think, more hours to pass where she was _gone_ and he was stuck, tied to this life he didn’t truly understand. Not without...

_Stand and squat. Stand and squat. Stand and squat._

_Kneel._

He imagined it burning, faintly, scorching as deeply as hellfire, but there was no pain, no vulnerability. Nothing to distract his mind but the salt on his skin.

He moved to the weights, lifting in repetitions all the same. A constant, droning chord—no progression, not even retrogression.

Stagnant.

But _this_ he could change. Some semblance of control he could wrest from all the uncertainty. Lifting and lowering. Lifting and lowering. Lifting and lowering.

And somewhere between the rise and the fall there was meaning. There was understanding.

If only he kept trying.

The machinery was...strange, and he longed for the days of the _gymnasiums_ of old Greece, of the Olympics in their variety and their splendor.

Or maybe simply for a time before _this_, before the strange ache in his chest that nothing seemed to dispel. For the monsters in the dark. For when one of those monsters was him.

He had not striven so well or so foolishly for a light he could never reach, before. But at least he knew, now, that this was pointless.

_Forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and back._

But how could he convince his fool heart to stop?

Ropes.

He didn't understand the point of the ropes, but the humans around him, who occasionally tried to talk to him, only to be waved unceremoniously off, seemed to swear by them.

So, ropes.

But ropes were not so different from chains, shackling, binding, dragging him down to depths far deeper than even this moment had brought him. A billowing darkness that was all he saw when he closed his eyes, a fire that immolated him to ash without a spark of brilliance or a single moment of reprieve.

He pulled and shuffled backward. Turned. Shuffled again.

He had bound himself this time, to these ropes, to this place. To this person. Bound the emotions he hadn't even known he had to her golden hair, to her sun-warmed skin, to the softness in her eyes so like the sea, to the scorn that ripped into him in the best of ways.

But he was rended only by absence, now, and he willed his hands to burn, to tear, to leave the proof of his works on their threads, dyed red with his desperation. But he was left with only salt, not blood, florid as the sea breeze, and he closed his eyes, trying to give in to the constant motion.

But it only felt like waves, crashing over his skin. Like feathers, tacky with blood spilt in hope and despair and futility.

Falling.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Season 4, Lucifer POV, back to the straight angst here.
> 
> _But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo_
> 
> _What the hell am I doing here?_
> 
> _I don’t belong_

_But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo_

_What the hell am I doing here?_

_I don’t belong_

Every day Lucifer would sing that damned song, and every night she would be taken from him. Every night she would run out again and he would wake, alone.

Meetings.

Therapy.

Crime scenes.

Crime scenes, where Daniel was a douche again—blaming him like they all did—and Miss Lopez was slowly breaking. But he couldn’t help her. He couldn’t help any of them. Not without the detective.

Not without Chloe.

And so he would fulfill the minimums of human responsibility until that increasingly tenuous mask cracked and fell away, leaving nothing but himself.

But who was that?

And the drinks would pile up until even the bartenders became concerned, and he sang that song until his patrons all turned away and he was left shouting, hoarse, to an empty room.

_She’s running out again…_

He returned to the penthouse, pulled up the fallboard on his other piano, and settled in front of it. His fingers trailed along the keys until they plucked out a few chords. That bloody song again. He couldn’t, for the life of him, make it stop echoing in his brain. His subconscious was screaming at him, but he wouldn’t give the blasted wanker the satisfaction of admitting that all of his fears had been realized. And, even then, that cruel bastard called hope refused to leave him.

He shook his head, rose, and headed to the bar. He downed a few more drinks, did a few more lines, lit a joint then stubbed it out, annoyed that the increasingly dissonant notes failed to turn to silence. That song never did quite manage to drown out the voices anyway.

_You know you’re a monster._

“I know,” he told the keys.

_Of course she ran. Of course she took her child and fled. You can’t blame her._

“I don’t.”

_You do though, don’t you?_

“No!”

_Don’t lie, Lucifer._

“I don’t lie.”

_Don’t you?_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene for _Angel of San Bernardino_, slight AU, sexual content, POV Chloe, POV Lucifer
> 
> _He is inside her, and she wants it, wants it desperately, wants nothing else._

He is inside her, and she wants it, wants it desperately, wants nothing else. She tilts her hips, letting him in further until it almost hurts, but it grounds her in this moment, and she is glad of it. He thrusts roughly, and she makes her mouth open, makes keens and moans and sighs echo from her throat. Her legs lock around his waist, and it’s everything she wants.

It has to be.

He is watching her in the gray light of an artificially lit night, watching her gasp as he jerks forward, mistaking her pain for ardor, furrowing her brow and making her pant. He is staring into her eyes, but there is nothing like tenderness in his gaze, though she knows he’s trying. She feels him trying as he grips her hips, as he presses deeper, as he grunts something like gentleness into her ear. His lips refuse her, and she is left bereft.

But when he tries to slow she only speeds up. She can’t take this specious softness, can’t take any more pretending, can only take the roughness she’s made herself want. She wants him, she _wants_ him, but she can’t look at him for another second, so she shuts her eyes against his desire, trying to feel, trying not to think.

And she is somewhere else

She is bathed in moonlight and held with exquisite tenderness. She kisses him as they move together, and there is something sacred in it. He whispers love into her skin, saying all those things he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ before, and she cries out. But she needs something else, so she turns him until she is on top, and he goes willingly. She presses down against him, hips rocking, and he watches her, awe on his face she’s not sure she deserves, but she’ll take it.

She’ll take all of it.

His hands tighten on her hips as she speeds their rhythm, but even in their haste and roughness there is something aching and true. A light that burns even brighter when he sits up beneath her to press his face between her breasts, to pant his passion there, hands painting his ardor against her back, over her waist and down further.

She tangles her fingers in his hair to pull him where she wishes, and he laughs, a high and pure and joyful sound that turns to a groan as she clutches at him. She is close, and he pulses within her, ever eager. They hold themselves on that verge together as the world drops away, her hands on his shoulders, his fingers working between her legs, and she wants to live forever in this moment.

But she falls—_will always fall, can’t help but plummet over that edge_—and gasps, and, when she opens her eyes, there is someone else nestled between her wanting thighs.

“_Marcus_,” she whispers, a truth, a lie. He grins up at her with a joy that would shatter her if she tried to mirror it, and pulls her off him. She looks into his eyes again, but there is no one there but himself, but them, but this slowly festering thing they’ve made between them. He cleans them up and tucks her into his side with all the gentleness he can muster, but she can only feel the delirious, desirous ache that comes on wings of moonlight whenever she closes her eyes.

She lets them fall shut, and it’s everything she wants. It has to be.

It’s all she has.

* * *

He needs to see the detective. He’s not certain why—his head won’t stop pounding—but it is vital. It is vital. It—

He stumbles out of the elevator into the parking garage. The lights are flashing, or his eyes are. He… he…

He wrenches the car door open, falls into the seat. He smacks a hand on the dashboard, and the engine roars to life. He puts the car into gear.

He has not slept in so long.

He’s on the highway. The wind whips through his hair. He can’t feel his face. He can’t feel his hands. They tighten on the wheel. He has to see her. He has to see her. He has to—

He is on a street. Somewhere. He is driving. He is driving. Her apartment is—

_Where is it?_

He’s parking in front of a building. The engine shuts off. He blinks at his hands. The wheel is bent. He pulls the door open. He can’t feel his feet. He is walking. He is walking. He is—

_So_ long.

He doesn’t knock on the door. He’s never knocked on the door. He needs to tell the detective something. He isn’t certain what—_thud, thud, thud,_ goes his heart, goes his head—but it is vital. It is vital. It—

The lock opens beneath his hand. He pulls the door wide. It is quiet. And dark. He’s not seen it this quiet. Nor this dark. It is strange. It is wrong. Is this what he needed to tell her?

_Why can’t he remember?_

The child’s door is closed. He listens at it for a moment, hearing only slow, steady breaths. Safe. She is safe. But her mother…?

He hesitates at the stairwell. He doesn’t mean to— That is to say he doesn’t… She’s told him to back off. He doesn’t mean to—

_Don’t lie_, a voice sneers in his mind.

And he doesn’t want to lie. He does mean to. He does want to. He wants. He wants. _He wants_. But he can’t… he can’t—

He takes the stairs. _Thud, thud, thud_, goes his feet, goes his heart, goes his head.

Something is happening in his brain, light flashing across his sight, the silence broken in screams from the very pit of Hell. He comes to the door. He touches the grain of the wood. It is solid, cool, _real_. He can feel his hands, now. He can feel his face. He can smell a thousand recollections so much stronger than the stench of fear.

He takes the handle, presses the door open, and—

_He_ is there.

Curled around her, making her seem so very small. _How dare he?_

His base, mundane hands allowed to touch her. _His_ cruelty made pure in her eyes. Why is he allowed this? Why is _he_—?

_No_. To deserve is to claim, is to make flesh, carnal, corrupt. Not soul, not light, not lo—

She hums in her sleep, pressing back against him. His hands tightened around her instinctively. There is fire, between them, and he is left outside, in the cold, watching the flames dance in the hearth. Watching the warmth, the comfort, the belonging.

And he is falling.

Cast down into the darkness, the links of his chains the poisonous whispers wrapped round his heart. The fire burning without light. Left to silence. Left to oblivion. Left to ruin.

Which is, he reckons, all he deserves. Not _deserve_. Not—

He allows himself a final moment—a supplicant before an angel, the impenitent before the devil, the shadow of true substance, a reflection in the mirror—before he closes the door, walking down the stairs, walking out of this place. He has beheld her in the light, and so he turns to the darkness, not even footsteps echoing behind him to mark her.

There is nothing. Less than nothing, for in nothingness he might find meaning. But in this…

He doesn’t deserve. He doesn’t _not_ deserve. He doesn’t… anything.

Perhaps he never has.


End file.
